Contemporary issues in experimental phonetics Edited by Norman J. Lass (review)

758 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 54, NUMBER 3 (1978) to a physiological theory of phonetics. It indicates some correlations between physiological mechanisms and basic articulatory categories such as vocoid, contoid, stop, fricative, and tap. The current state of knowledge is insufficient to allow Hardcastle to do much more than speculate on these topics. There is still little that can be said about some of the major problems of interest to linguists. Is speech production organized in terms of phonological features? Do segments have a physiological unity that is more than the sum of their component features? Are syllables units in the temporal organization of speech production? Hardcastle's book will help many students understand the basic processes involved in speech production—so that, one hopes, we can better come to grips with these problems. [Peter Ladefoged, UCLA.] Contemporary issues in experimental phonetics. Edited by Norman J. Lass. New York: Academic Press, 1976. Pp. xii, 497. This is undoubtedly the best available textbook for a graduate course in experimental phonetics. Lass is to be congratulated for getting such a distinguished collection of scientists, all authorities in their own areas, to write special chapters for this survey of contemporary issues. Moreover, he has made an excellent selection of topics, covering all the important areas of speech production, acoustic phonetics, and speech perception. The volume opens with a chapter on instrumentation for the study of speech acoustics (Hisashi Wakita) which concentrates almost entirely on computerized techniques. It includes brief accounts of cepstrum analysis, linear prediction methods for formant analysis, and the use of partial correlation coefficients in derivations of vocal tract area functions. The second chapter (James Abbs and Kenneth Watkin) outlines a wide variety of techniques for studying speech physiology, including electromyography, movement transducers of all kinds, and photoelectric and ultrasonic techniques. There is then an excellent series of chapters on models of speech production (Raymond Kent), aerodynamics of speech production (Donald Warren), and peripheral mechanisms of speech motor control (James Abbs and Gerald Eilenberg). Chapters on the acoustic characteristics of segments (June Shoup and Larry Pfeiffer) and on suprasegmentals (Use Lehiste) occupy a comparatively small portion of the book. Speech perception (Michael Studdert-Kennedy ), in the traditional sense of the processing of vowels and consonants, is also given no more space than studies on dichotic listening (Charles Berlin and Malcolm McNeil). This part of the book also contains a good chapter on speaker recognition (Peter Bricker and Sandra Pruzansky)—a topic that is currently of both commercial and forensic interest—and a chapter on auditory illusions and perceptual processes (Richard Warren) that should be of interest to linguists, in that it indicates processes that may be important in historical sound changes. The final chapters, on time and frequency distortions of speech (Daniel Bealey and Jean Maki) and the perception of pitch (John Brandt) have less to say that is of linguistic concern. But taken as a whole, this book will be very useful for linguists, introducing them to a whole realm of experimental phonetics beyond the (still not to be deposed) sound spectrograph. [Peter Ladefoged, UCLA.] Grundlagen der Sprachschallanalyse (Sonagraphie). By K. Müller and H. Ölberg. (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft, Sonderheft 40.) Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck , 1977. Pp. 69. The purpose of this little monograph is quite specific: to give linguists and speech therapists the working knowledge to interpret sonagrams which they may encounter in their professional literature. The clarity and conciseness of the presentation make it very useful for its intended purpose. The text, which occupies only about twothirds of the total book, is divided into five chapters. The first four offer brief but adequate presentations of areas which are prerequisite to an understanding of the significance of sonagrams: basic acoustics, speech production, the acoustic structure of speech sounds, and sonagraphy. The chapter on sonagraphy is particularly refreshing as it describes the capabilities of the sonagraph (a ...